I. When, nine years ago, I first set out from Melbourne bound for British New Guinea--or Papua, as it is now officially called--I had very vague ideas about how to reach it, or what it would be like when I got there. I knew that New Guinea was a large island lying off the extreme north of Australia, and that the part I was going to was a little south of the Equator, but that was about all. However, I was told that I should catch a boat at Sydney which was sailing for Samarai, the island port of Papua, and that there I should be met by the schooner of the Anglican Mission. I might have to finish the journey in a whaleboat, I was informed, so my belongings had better be packed in small boxes. Thereupon I set off, armed with a thousand tabloids of quinine, a defence against malarial fever, which everyone in Papua contracts more or less badly as a matter of course. [Illustration: THE HOSPITAL AT SAMARAI, THE PICTURESQUE CAPITAL OF PAPUA. _From a Photograph._] Although the distance was not very great, the voyage took nearly three weeks, for we certainly did not hurry. The captain was a cautious old man, and every night, during one "reefy" part of the trip, our anchor went down at six o'clock, not to be hauled up till the same hour next morning. Then, too, instead of making for Samarai, we rounded Cape York and visited Thursday Island, where we remained for some days. Moreover, after calling at Port Moresby, on the south coast of Papua, we deliberately went sixty miles out of our way to land some members of the Roman Catholic Mission at Yule Island, their head station. But at last, one morning, we reached Samarai--and a very pretty little place I thought it, though it is now much altered by the addition of a number of stores and Government buildings. One of the latter, the hospital, is shown on the previous page. Four little hills rose in the centre of the tiny island, surrounded by a picturesque, though unhealthy, swamp. Gorgeous crotons blazed with crimson and gold in the tropical sunlight, and thick clusters of palms--coco, areca, and sago--swayed gently in the wind, while their stiff leaves rustled in a most misleading manner, imitating a heavy shower of rain. Papaw trees hung their graceful sprays of waxen blossom, or stood upright under their load of ripening yellow fruit. [Illustration: THE LITTLE VESSEL IN WHICH MISS KER COMPLETED HER LONG JOURNEY. _From a Photograph._]